


You Don't Have to Stay

by impureimpulse



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2089218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impureimpulse/pseuds/impureimpulse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't the city he's missed at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Have to Stay

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Meme: Famous Last Words](https://archiveofourown.org/works/185287) by [kiwoa (Rinoa)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinoa/pseuds/kiwoa). 



> The format for this fic was inspired by the above fic. This was a prompt for a meme from an Anon on Tumblr who asked for Souyos with the line "You don't have to stay."

 

It’s so quiet, it’s hard to make out the words, murmured under Souji’s breath so faintly that for a few seconds, Yosuke might have been certain he imagined them if it hadn’t been for the slow creeping flush spreading across the other boy’s cheeks. The train platform is crowded but the space around them feels oddly vacant, as they’re aware of the several sets of eyes on them. Their friends peering through the windows of the train car, waving awkwardly to them both as it pulls away on a return journey that one of them _should_ be making as well.

“Nah. It’s fine, I can head back the day after tomorrow, it’s not like Ted can’t fill in for me for a day. We should catch up. And I’ve missed the city, you know?”

It’s a talk they need to have, one long overdue. The pit of Souji’s stomach twinges, exhilaration, fear, and a small amount of hope he tries, and fails, to quash in its tracks. Yosuke grins, an open palm suddenly heavy on his shoulder.

It’s clear to him then; he _doesn’t_ _have to_ , and it isn’t the _city_ he’s missed at all.

* * *

“You don’t have to stay.”

The offer is there, but the option itself isn’t, as much as there’s a deeply buried part of him that might want to consider it. It hurts his chest, like a blow to listen to, and while Souji’s never been the type, he can’t help the thoughts that race through his head.

Why did it have to happen to Yosuke? It had only been a year since he’d lost his father, and Souji had hoped then, not for the first time, that he’d never have to see this sterile, stark hall of the hospital again. Yosuke’s mother had been his anchor back then, the one he’d clung to, stifling painfully held-back sobs into her chest. Souji had ignored the sick, selfish part of him where that particular pang of jealousy had tried to take root. Instead, he’d been all he could, which was there. The thanks that Yosuke had tried to offer him afterwards had been politely refused. It was no choice of his; what else would he have done?

An aneurysm, this time. They’d said it was unavoidable, that there was nothing they could have done. By the time they’d found her, she was beyond help, breath and heartbeat or not. The hospital hallway and the helplessness are both similar, each has the same familiar sort of deadened, heavy silence which turns inwards on him once the other man breaks, his arms swallowing Souji’s chest. Comforting, he hopes, but all he can feel is the same self-disgust at the things he can’t control. The thoughts he can’t take back before they form. Like a Shadow within him, except with no way to manifest, no way to be accepted, no way to be acknowledged, or conquered. With no way to forgive himself for each poisonous thought.

It should have been him this time, his turn, he could have borne this better. Souji’s parents cared for him, he’d never deny that.

But Yosuke’s parents _loved_ him. _Had_ loved him. It isn’t fair.

He doesn’t _have_ to stay, but he _must._

Here, at least, he’s _needed_.

* * *

“You don’t have to stay.”

The words are snapped, heated, filled with a bitter malice Souji is almost surprised to hear come from his own mouth. That much is new, different than it’s been the last few times they’ve fought like this. It happens often enough, he ought to recognize change when he hears and sees it, but somehow even this observation isn’t enough to make him expect what comes afterwards.

“Yeah, well maybe I fucking won’t! I’m sick of you trying to tell me what the hell you think is wrong with me, Souji!” Yosuke’s chest is heaving, like it always does when he’s angry, like his lungs are trying to escape him entirely. “I just—I don’t want to—no, I _can’t_ do this anymore. Do you just not get that? I’m not like—”

Souji can feel his face is still, impassive, and he finds his attention is distantly drawn away from his voice to Yosuke’s hands, which have clenched into fists. That’s nothing new either, but the way they slacken and relax gradually a moment later is. The furrow in Yosuke’s brow is permanent by now, etched into his features along with the smile lines and finely branching crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. All things which Souji both notices, and somehow doesn’t.

In this particular moment, it’s suddenly all he sees; the light from the window outside casts light that’s harsh enough, it’s like he can physically see the years that have passed, taking both their teens and then their twenties with them. They’ve lived many of those years together, and somehow in all the time he’s spent studying people, in trying to solve their issues and problems, he’s missed something. It’s the passing thought that maybe he never wanted to see it in the first place that make his eyes burn and his throat constrict to silence.

“I’m not like… you. Like _that_. It’s not—it’s not you, Souji, I… Fuck. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I just… don’t hate me, please...”

People aren’t logical; actions don’t always make sense, and Souji knows this, he does. The capacity for human survival, for mental self-control is almost frightening. People will harm themselves, endure impossible situations in a fruitless hope that they can come to accept them, that wishing for something enough will make it so.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to stay, he honestly doesn’t doubt that.

It’s that he _can’t_.

Souji tells himself it ought to make some sort of difference. But the hurt, hot, painful, and no one’s fault but his own, is exactly the same.

* * *

 

“You don’t have to stay.”

The words come more evenly than he expected them to, given the circumstances, but there is no falseness he can detect, and it’s only belatedly that Souji remembers to even try. It took time, but he’s learned by now, that it isn’t looking closely at people that gets you into trouble, it’s making assumptions about what any of it might mean.

“I really do. Dojima-san wouldn’t have asked me to come and see him like that, otherwise.” Souji insists, mild and kindly, but firm in his decision.

“Really, I mean it. I know you’re busy, and it’s harder for you to get time off at the university this time of year.” The sincerity in Yosuke’s voice puzzles Souji more than it should, and there isn’t any resentment behind the offer, either. Just weariness.

Not that he’ll blame him for that; he’s weary too, even if it’s just noting the heaviness in his body for a split second upon waking. There are aches now, in bones he vaguely recalls injuring only in a surreal world that seems like a distant dream by now. Those twinges are strangely welcome now, a reminder of an important past shared with those close to him, no matter how painful it might have been at one time.

Yosuke smiles tightly at him, fingers flexing, his wrist twitching as he unnecessarily grasps his teacup again, like he might have begun to reach for his hand. By reflex, before remembering himself. It’s harder than it needs to be not to make assumptions about something like that, when the object of your attention is still as expressive in middle age as he once was in childhood.

“Nanako will be making the bulk of the arrangements for him. I can stay for a while, help her if she needs it. You’ll want to take time away for the actual funeral rites, and it’s easier for me to—”

“Yosuke. It’s all right.” He leaves him no room to argue this time, his reply equal parts reassurance and reprimand. Souji actually listens to him now, understanding the offer for what it is, and he can’t help but wonder when it was that miracle quietly occurred. Yosuke, for all his talking, had always listened to him, and it had taken him, with his few words, this long to reciprocate.

“...Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“No, I get it, I’m being overbearing again, and—”

“ _Yosuke_.”

It’s the same voice he used to use, the one that warned for danger, sharp and commanding, smooth and steely all at once.

“You have nothing to apologize to me for. _Nothing_. Do you understand?”

Something Souji can’t quite place squeezes the breath from Yosuke’s chest, the sigh heavy enough he can imagine he physically feels the weight of it, unconsciously slouching his shoulders and bowing his neck too. Mimicry that he hopes isn’t bordering on mockery, as Yosuke notices it immediately and draws himself back upright. It’s a pointless display of strength and personal will at a time like this, but it’s probably meant for his sake. Not so pointless after all, then, to one of them. If he’d paid closer attention to what mattered and what didn’t when he’d had the chance, to exactly how far he’d forced what couldn’t be, would it have made any difference?

Some things can’t be changed, can’t be helped. It’s better to leave it be. Wiser to leave well enough alone. The past is one more unchangeable variable, and isn’t time supposed to heal all things?

“Besides ‘everything’, you mean?” Yosuke mutters, but humor that dry isn’t like him. “You don’t accept apologies from me, though, do you? I wouldn’t either in your place, but you’re not the only one with a monopoly on guilt. ...Sorry.”

It sounds more like thinly-veiled regret, and Souji curses himself for his inability to stop speculating over what any of it means. It’s probably entirely in his mind, a product of misguided imagination rooted in regrets of his own. Textbook projection, the same willful blindness as always, seeing what he wants to instead of what is.

“Not everything is— _was_ your fault, Yosuke.” It’s all too clear whose fault it _is_ , but he wouldn’t listen, even if he told him otherwise. They’re too rigid now, too set in their ways, in themselves, to change anything after so long.

“Right. And you won’t even let me do this for you, will you?” The disappointment is worse, somehow, than if Yosuke would actually just get angry with him, but it’s nothing less than he deserves, Souji is sure.

This can’t go on forever, as much as he’d like to avoid it, burying himself in work and whatever distractions he can find. That’s no answer at all, they both know that, maybe better than anyone else possibly could. Nothing good comes of letting old wounds fester and seal their poison in; that isn’t recovery, just a slower, more painful death. What’s right isn’t always easy, and what’s easier isn’t always right.

_He’d sworn he’d prove that to her, hadn’t he?_

“It’s not like that, Yosuke. It’s okay. I can go back the day after tomorrow, they’ll manage without me for a day. I’d rather be here, for Nanako, and everyone.”

_For you_. Souji swallows quietly, but he’s determined to see it through this time, and forces the words out anyway. “Yosuke, I think... we should talk. Just catch up. I’ve missed this place, you don’t know how much, do you?”

It’s a talk they’ve always needed to have, one very long overdue. The expression on Yosuke’s face shifts rapidly before he can look away. In hesitation, in fear, and in what might be the faintest amount of hope. Souji tries, and fails, to stop that thought in its tracks. Yosuke nods, silent, tentative, and just a bit too quickly.

It’s clear to Souji, then. You never _have to stay_. It’s always easier to leave things as they are.

He’ll stay because of what’s missed if he won’t. For her. For himself.

And so _he’ll_ finally understand; that it isn’t _this place_ he’s missed at all.

 


End file.
